CNN (March 18)
“All but one of the 100 cities with the world’s worst air pollution last year were in Asia… with the climate crisis playing a pivotal role in bad air quality that is risking the health of billions of people worldwide.” Of these, 83 cities “were in India and all exceeded the World Health Organization’s air quality guidelines” for PM2.5 “by more than 10 times.”
Tags: Air pollution, Asia, Cities, Climate crisis, Guidelines, Health, https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/18/climate/air-pollution-report-2023-asia-climate-intl-hnk/index.html Worst, India, PM2.5, Quality, Risking, WHO
The Guardian (December 31)
2023 was “the hottest year on record” and may mark “the year humanity put its stamp on Antarctica in ways that will be felt for centuries to come.” The continent “has suffered dramatic shifts that raise serious concerns about its immediate health.” These coincide with “evidence that longer-term transformations linked to the climate crisis have started much sooner” than expected. Beyond “ramifications for local wildlife,” there will be ripple effects “across the globe in ways that are often less well understood.”
Tags: 2023, Antarctica, Climate crisis, Concerns, Evidence, Hottest, Humanity, Ramifications, Record, Shifts, Transformations, Wildlife
The Guardian (May 18)
“The enormous plastic waste footprint of the top 20 global companies amounts to more than half of the 130m metric tonnes of single-use plastic thrown away in 2019. Single-use plastics are made almost exclusively from fossil fuels, driving the climate crisis, and because they are some of the hardest items to recycle, they end up creating global waste mountains. Just 10%-15% of single-use plastic is recycled globally each year.”
Tags: Climate crisis, Enormous, Fossil fuels, Plastic, Recycle, Single-use plastic, Top 20, Waste footprint
The Economist (March 6)
“Though understandable,” the knee-jerk reaction following the Fukushima disaster “was wrong.” Nuclear power has numerous drawbacks, but “well-regulated nuclear power is safe” and essential given the climate crisis. Nuclear provides constant generating capacity to support a reliable grid. Furthermore, “nuclear provides such capacity with no ongoing emissions, and it is doing so safely and at scale around the world.”
Tags: Climate crisis, Disaster, Drawbacks, Emissions, Fukushima, Generating capacity, Grid, Nuclear power, Reaction, Reliable, Safe, Scale, Understandable, Well-regulated
